


15x06 coda: any way the wind blows

by contemplativepancakes



Series: Season 15 codas [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 15x06 coda, Cas is getting over the break up, Castiel POV, Coda, Episode: s15e03 The Rupture, Episode: s15e06 Golden Time, M/M, or attempting to at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2019-11-22
Packaged: 2021-02-18 00:47:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21519172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/contemplativepancakes/pseuds/contemplativepancakes
Summary: Cas gives Matthew a tentative smile and finds himself in easy conversation with him until his stop comes. Matthew stands up regretfully and pushes a piece of paper into Cas’s hand. “Call me, if you want,” he says, and then he’s gone.Cas doesn’t know what to think about that. He looks at the paper and sees a string of digits, a phone number. He folds it carefully and tucks it away.Cas is moving on. Or, he's trying to, at least, but Dean won't stop haunting his thoughts.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Castiel/OMC
Series: Season 15 codas [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1539418
Comments: 6
Kudos: 73





	15x06 coda: any way the wind blows

Cas is on a bus to… somewhere. He honestly doesn’t even remember where he bought a ticket to. The echo of Dean’s words had been too loud in his ears to pay attention to the teller.

_“Something always goes wrong,” Cas had said._

_“Why does that something always seem to be you?” Dean had replied, and Cas had stared at him in stunned silence. He couldn’t believe Dean would say that, after everything they had gone through together._

_“Well, I don’t think there’s anything left to say.” And then he had walked out, his footsteps thudding on the metal stairs every step of the way._

And now he’s sitting on a dank and smelly bus, the metal springs of the seat digging into his ass. He’s vaguely concerned that he can even register that, just another sign of his fading grace. He leans his head against the window and tracks the rain drops falling down. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, staring at the blank screen. “Expecting a phone call?” the man sitting beside him asks.

Cas tucks his phone away and looks the man over. He seems nonthreatening, on the whole, and if Cas recalls correctly, it’s a four hour bus ride, so he says, “No. I just can’t believe there’s no one trying to hold me back there, I guess.”

The man tsks in sympathy. “Where to now?” he asks.

Cas blushes. “Um. I forget.”

The man throws his head back and laughs. “I’m Matthew,” he says, sticking out a hand.

Cas reaches his hand out slowly, and Matthew takes it in a firm grasp and pumps it up and down. “I’m Cas.”

“Nice to meet you,” Matthew smiles, and Cas can’t help but be struck by how very nice his smile is.

“Where are you headed?” Cas asks.

Matthew shrugs and gives him another easy grin. “Wherever the wind blows me to.”

“Looking for anything specific?”

“Nah, just whatever catches my eye,” he says, and Cas wonders just how obvious the way Matthew looked him up and down was if even he had picked up on it.

Cas clears his throat and looks away, feeling the tips of his ears turning red. He reaches into his coat and pulls out a paperback, a thumbed through novel he had picked up from Dean’s nightstand probably a month ago. It was before.

Before Dean decided to blame Cas for everything bad to have ever happened, before the acridity of Dean’s words had eaten him through so much, he had to leave.

“Whatcha reading?” Matthew asks.

When Cas looks up in something like exasperation, Matthew holds up his hands. “It’s a long ride, sorry. I get bored.”

Cas softens and reads him the synopsis, coloring a bit when he realizes it’s a romance with two men. Cas isn’t sure why he’s surprised, Dean reads these just as often as he reads stories with opposite gender love interests, but it seems reckless to read that aloud outside of the safety of what had used to be their bedroom. Cas supposes it’s not _theirs_ anymore.

Matthew looks at him with renewed interest, a grin playing on the edge of his lips. “Sounds like a good read,” he comments.

“I just started it, so I couldn’t say yet. My- friend normally has good taste, though.”

“Your friend, huh?”

Cas wrinkles his brow. “Yes, he- oh. I guess that’s what I’m leaving, anyway. I don’t think we parted as friends.”

Matthew claps a hand on Cas’s shoulder. “Guess he doesn’t know what he’s missing out on, then, does he?”

Cas gives him a tentative smile and finds himself in easy conversation with Matthew until his stop comes. Matthew stands up regretfully and pushes a piece of paper into Cas’s hand. “Call me, if you want,” he says, and then he’s gone.

Cas doesn’t know what to think about that. He looks at the paper and sees a string of digits, a phone number. He folds it carefully and tucks it away.

Finally, he steps off of the bus on shaky legs after being cramped for so long. Cas knows how to scam credit cards now, something Dean taught him after the whole Rexford fiasco, so he pulls the out the most recent one he had applied for and twists it over in his fingers, trying to ignore the ache that it brings. Cas sees the red neon lights of a motel in the distance, so he starts walking that way. He can remember when he first took control of this vessel, the effortless way it obeyed his commands. He compares it to now, and how his feet seem to drag across the ground.

At the motel, they don’t have any rooms left. Cas isn’t sure if he believes that, but when he’s offered a cabin to rent for the week, he thinks that sounds nice. Even if they were trying to upsell him, he doesn’t mind. He signs the papers and leaves his name as Clarence Worley. He’s not sure if it’s a tip of his hat to Meg or just holding out hope that Dean will come looking for him and recognize the alias. He doesn’t know if he has any hope left to hold out for Dean.

He lays on the bed and torments himself with his thoughts for a day until he goes to take a walk. He needs something, anything, to keep his mind from the spiraling pattern it desperately wants to follow, all things leading back to Dean. He’s on his second circuit around the town when his phone starts buzzing. He looks down, cursing himself for the way his chest clenches when he sees it’s Sam, and not Dean, calling him. He silences the phone and ducks into the bait and tackle shop. He wants to go fishing, he decides. He’s watched Dean go fishing any number of times in his dreams, and if that’s something that can make Dean happy and relaxed, Cas will give it a shot.

The man who runs the shop is named Andy, and he is very kind, walking Cas through the best fishing poles and other accessories he needs. He gives Cas directions to a lake where he can fish at, cautioning him to be wary of the wildlife officers, and ushers him off.

Cas doesn’t catch anything, and he’s not sure if it calms his mind any. Makes it more tired, maybe, from running itself in ragged circles thinking about Dean, Dean, Dean. Dean fishing on the dock in his dream, Dean laughing, Dean with the sun glinting off his hair, Dean grinning from the driver’s seat of the Impala, Dean relaxed and laid out after early morning sex… Cas shakes his head. This isn’t productive. His phone buzzes again. Still Sam.

He goes back the next day, though, and the next, and the next. What can he say? He’s a glutton for punishment.

He stumbles onto a case a week and twenty seven missed calls and texts later (none from Dean) when he returns to the bait shop. Andy doesn’t seem to be surprised to see Cas peeking into the shop window before it’s opened, just greets him with a “Hey, Clarence,” and pulls out his keys to open the door. “Come on in, early bird.”

Cas follows him inside. Andy turns on the lights and then heads to the counter and slogs whiskey into his cup, and Cas can’t help but think this is someone he can help. This isn’t someone he has to stand by and never question. “Is everything alright?”

Andy hesitates before telling Cas he’s a volunteer firefighter, and they just pulled a body out of the lake. He says the body was drained of blood, and Cas can’t help but think this is something he should look into.

He goes to the sheriff’s office. _He goes to the sheriff’s office_ , and the sheriff has already sent off the body and won’t give him the case files without talking to his supervisor. He reaches inside his trench coat and reluctantly pulls out a business card. He hands it over and fervently hopes it’s Sam who’s closest to the phone bank.

The sheriff dials the number, and Cas waits with bated breath. “Uh, this is Sheriff Aldin Roy, I’m just checking up on Agent Worley.”

There’s a pause before the sheriff says to Cas, “He wants to talk to you.”

Cas groans. He does not want to talk to either of them, regardless of if it’s Sam or Dean.

“Hello,” Cas answers sullenly. 

“Cas. Sam’s been trying to call you,” Dean says woodenly, and Cas doesn’t know how he feels about that.

“I know.”

“Did you check his messages?”

“No,” Cas says petulantly, and he knows he’s not being fair, but neither is Dean.

“Right. Smart. Why would you? Look, I don’t know if you care or not, but God, Chuck, he’s back on the board, so watch yourself. And check your damn messages,” Dean says before he hangs up, the dial tone sounding in Cas’s ear. He still needs the case information, though, so he says, “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” before slamming the phone onto the receiver.

“I’ll get you those files,” the sheriff says.

Cas heaves an internal sigh of relief. “Thank you.”

Cas commandeers an office at the police station and spreads out all the files. He tries not to think about Dean, or Chuck, or Dean, or Dean. He looks through them and marks the locations of the bodies recovered on the map he picked up from the bait shop. He starts to sweat, so he pulls off his trench coat. He grimaces as he wipes his face, so it’s free of the sweat that shouldn’t be dripping off any part of his body.

When he sees a pattern, he goes to the lake where all the bodies seem to center around. He’s not sure if it’s a water monster of some kind, or if that’s just where a vampire is dropping off their victims. A woman he met at the police station, who the secretary wouldn’t take seriously when she said her son was missing, comes out of the trees behind him. “So, I followed you,” she says, and Cas sighs. He doesn’t need another person being hurt on his conscience.

The woman, Molly, says there’s an old silver mine in the middle of Cas’s map of x’s, and she says she won’t give him the location, but she’ll take him there.

“Okay. But stay close.”

They talk on their way there. Molly tells Cas how she uprooted her life, trying to get away from the toxicity she had found herself in. “But I guess taking yourself out of the game doesn’t really change the game,” she says, and that sticks with Cas. He hates that it resonates, but it does. 

Eventually, they find Molly’s son, sitting propped against one of the trees, looking bruised and with one of his ankles pointing the wrong way, but he’s alive. Their discovery had kind of taken the wind out of Cas’s ‘monsters are real’ speech, but Cas doesn’t mind. The djinn that pops into view doesn’t hurt his credibility, either. It’s the sheriff, and Cas can’t say he’s surprised.

He slides his blade out of his sleeve. “You won’t hurt them,” he says, and the sheriff pulls out his pistol and shoots Cas through the heart.

Cas tries to keep the relief off his face that his weakening vessel can even heal, and he walks forward with a confidence he’s not sure he feels. “It’s always you. You selfish little men in positions of authority. You take what you want, who you want, and you believe your power will protect you.”

The man shoots him again, and Cas grips his lapels and throws him to the ground. “It won’t protect you from me.” He hefts his blade above his head and plunges it into the man’s sternum, piercing right through the bone. He feels a power he hasn’t felt for a while, control over himself, and he stabs the djinn repeatedly until his coat and shirt are spattered with blood.

He stands up and walks over to Molly and her son, who are looking at him with a sort of horror. He cautiously reaches a hand out over her son’s ankle, and Cas’s grace sputters weakly, mending the bone. When Cas straightens, he’s winded, but it’s worth it for the grateful look Molly gives him. “That’s a miracle,” she says in wonder, and Cas has missed that, just a bit. He had always been used to being treated with a sense of awe, and then he met the Winchesters, and his powers had just been an every day occurrence. Not that he minded too much, but a little bit of gratitude would be nice every now and again. “Were you sent by God?” she asks.

“I think you’re better off not knowing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I’m happy I met you, and that I met your son.”

“And now you’re leaving?”

“Yes. If I stay, nothing changes. It’s time for me to get back in the game.”

He escorts Molly and her son back to her car, and then he turns back to the woods. He knows it’s likely the djinn had more victims strung up somewhere, and he needs to find them. He combs the area near where he killed the djinn until he finds the silver mine Molly told him about. He walks in and his eyes strain in the dim light. He doesn’t have enough grace to waste on lighting up the area, though, so he squints and looks as far ahead as he can.

He sees a form tied by its arms to an old pipe, and he walks towards it until he hears footsteps behind him. He whirls around to see another djinn advancing towards him. The djinn dives for his legs, trying to knock him off balance, but he steps out of reach. He tackles the djinn and pins it to the dusty ground, his hand coming up to its forehead before he remembers himself and pulls out his knife instead. He plunges the knife through its eye, taking perverse pleasure in the djinn’s cries of pain. Maybe he understands why Dean gets so cagey when he goes too long without going on a hunt. Cas looks up and sees a familiar face is the one in chains. Cas rushes towards him, and Matthew looks up at him weakly. “Cas?” he groans.

Cas rips the tape off his arm and gingerly removes the needle stealing his blood. “Are you alright? Can you walk?”

Matthew starts to get to his feet before he stumbles and loses his footing. He grips Cas’s shoulder urgently. “There’s two of them!”

“I already killed one of them,” Cas answers, squinting down at Matthew to see how he’s hurt. Cas doubts he has enough grace to solve everything, but he can probably get Matthew walking again.

“Are you a hunter?” Matthew asks.

Cas hesitates for a second before he nods. “My prince,” Matthew says dramatically before trying to rise to his feet again.

Cas goes with him, his hands hovering near Matthew’s waist in case he falls again, but he seems okay.

“Are you a hunter, too?” Cas asks, just to be sure.

Matthew scowls. “Yeah. You just caught me on a bad day, that’s all.”

“I’m happy I could help,” Cas says sincerely.

Matthew looks up at him again. “Hey, you finish your book?”

“Yes?” Cas isn’t sure where Matthew’s going with that line of questioning until he wraps a fist in his tie and tugs him forward.

“I bet I can top whatever that ending was.” His mouth is inches away from Cas’s, their breath intermingling. Unlike in his book, Matthew’s breath does not smell like roses and oranges.

Cas doesn’t care, though, and he arches an eyebrow in challenge. Matthew tugs him forward and their mouths meet in a clash of wet lips and hot tongues. Matthew’s almost as good of a kisser as Dean, and-

Cas shuts down that line of thinking. He brings up a hand to cradle the back of Matthew’s head, gently pulsing a healing wave of grace into him, and backs him back into the wall. Cas pops the button of Matthew’s jeans and shoves a hand into his underwear, wrapping a hand around his half hard cock. Matthew pants into his mouth and fumbles for Cas’s pants, but Cas catches his hand. “Let me,” he murmurs, and unbuttons his own pants. He brings up a hand to Matthew’s mouth, making eye contact with Matthew as he licks a stripe down Cas’s palm. Cas puts that hand back in Matthew’s pants and strokes him until he’s fully hard and leaking.

Matthew leans his head back against the mine wall, exposing his throat, and Cas sucks a bruise there as Matthew moans. Matthew wedges a leg between Cas’s thighs, and Cas grinds against it until he’s out of breath. Matthew tries again to stick his hand down Cas’s pants, and this time Cas lets him. Cas adds in a twist of his wrist as he strokes Matthew, trying to make up for what he’s sure is his own lack of rhythm as his hips start to stutter and jerk forward of their own accord. Matthew moans again, a long, drawn out sound, and Cas feels wetness between his fingers and on his palm. He withdraws his hand, but Matthew isn’t done with him, jacking Cas with long strokes that make him moan and tremble. It’s Cas’s turn to thud his head against the wall as he _feels_ and as he comes, he cries, “Fuck! Dean, fuck, right there!”

He sinks to the floor in a satisfied puddle and wipes his hand off on the ground. He turns his head to see Matthew staring at him. “What?”

“Some friend you left behind, huh?” he asks with a shit eating grin.

Cas thinks about what he said and groans. “Fuck.”

**Author's Note:**

> hope you enjoyed! let me know what you thought :D


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